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They Call Me Mellow Yellow

They Call Me Mellow Yellow

Mellow Yellow - by Donovan

I'm just mad about SaffronSaffron's mad about meI'm just mad about SaffronShe's just mad about me

{Refrain}They call me mellow yellow

With the 3 GMA’s baking their fine cornbread I was all set to make one of my favorite ones with jalapeños, creamed corn, homemade apple and maple smoked bacon and who knows what kind of cheese but Donovan’s song kept spinning around in my apprentices tiny head.

I think sometimes folks just don’t trust their intuition as much as they should, especially left handed women whose intuition is almost never wrong. Science has been baffled for some time why this might be so but, they, being scientists, are fairly sure it doesn’t have much of anything to do with bread baking even though Donovan’s song does, at least as far as Lucy goes, which isn’t very far due to short legs and her sleeping most of the time.

We have another corn bread recipe, not the sweet kind, that I really like to make to have cornbread for Thanksgiving stuffing, but it isn’t nearly as good as stand alone bread. So Lucy thought, not that long or hard, that we should keep some corn flour in today’s recipe but, to really go with her intuition, by putting in every mellow yellow ingredient she could find in the pantry. She gets like this sometimes, being a determined German and I’m pretty sure she is left pawed too.

She found 3 kinds of semolina flour, the little left over bit of that fine Desert Durum, some Golden Temple Durum Atta where I had sifted out most all of the atta to use in the last batch of Toadies and some semolina we had picked up out of Winco’s bins.

Although a dog’s color acuity is far less than their baking masters, they aren’t totally color blind either. Still, I suspect my apprentice’s long and gifted nose helped her distinguish one color of flour from another and she managed to pick out the yellow ones quite easily. I wonder what she could do with truffles? Then she hit on the garbanzo flour in the freezer and those beautifully yellow quinoa seeds that she had me grind into flour– not too much of either though.

On the wet side, orange juice came to mind right away but she jumped right into the last home made bottle of limoncello and it was all I could do to keep her away from it but did manage to limit her to 1/2 shot for the bread. She didn’t want the bread to be too acidic from the citrus so she whipped up a saffron soaker to really give the bread a yellow color and also fit the lyrics of the Donovan tune still driving her crazy.

Even though they are not all liquid, she found some yellow ingredients in the fridge; she dumped in an egg yolk, some butter (even though American butter isn’t nearly as yellow or tasty as Kerrygold brand from Ireland) and some very pale yellow ricotta cheese which really hit her Italian theme with the durum semolina.

A knotted roll in the center surrounded by 8 balls and a rope, then covered by a huge bialy.

But, she wasn’t done, hardly ever is really and is pretty full of it most always. For add ins she grabbed some dried Turkish apricots that she re-hydrated and then used the left over yellow, sweet, soaking water for part of the dough liquid. She had been hoarding a huge pile of tiny yellow millet seeds just for this occasion too.

Then, thinking the bread wasn’t yellow or mellow enough, the Turkish Apricots sparked the thought of a yellow spice used in Turkey – turmeric. She remembered that Shaio-Ping and used it in conjunction with orange juice in her fine Turmeric and Orange Juice Bread so…..In went a 1/8 tsp of this subtle yet earthy spice to flavor and color the dough even more. Whew!!

This bread made a fine breakfast with some mango, staw and black berries, a minneola and some fine minneola caramalized marmalade.

Being a nut herself, she eventually realized that there weren’t any in this bread. Doing the unexpected last in a long line of fruit and nut breads (that we said we would not do again after the last one), without the nuts just isn’t done. She looked everywhere for a yellow nut but came up paw empty.

I just couldn’t stand the look on her cute little face so I put my designer thinking Joaquin Sombrero on and told her she needed to have something to contrast and compliment all that Mellow Yellow and some green Pistachios were just the ticket, Turkish and just in time for Cinco de Mayo too – a three’fer if there ever was one.

David Snyder may have his famous San Joaquin bread but it doesn’t hold a candle to keeping the hot AZ sun..... de la cabeza. Lucy wanted a very soft moist crumb feeling this was a much mellower option than a hard dry one, so she took 25 g of semolina and Tang Zhonged it with 100 g of water – instead of the usual 125 g.

Her last wishful addition was to throw in some small pieces of an old yellow kitchen sponge because she knew this dough would end up feeling (and this bake is really all about feeling) way more wet than its published 68% hydration. I told her, me duele la cabeza, so she stopped pushing the sponge even though she can’t speak a lick of Spanish.

For the rise, we had a rye whole wheat SD leaven left over from last weeks bake that had peaked in the fridge and fell and inch. We cut it in half and fed it 50 g of semolina and 50 g or water. It was still plenty potent as it doubled again in 3 hours. We also wanted a Italian side so we made a biga out of a pinch of ADY and 25 g each of semolina and water. It too had risen nicely in 3 hours due to the AZ heat in the kitchen at 90 F.

We followed our usual method of late but only did a 2 hour autolyse for these yellow flours and 10 minutes of slap and folds. Singing the Mellow Yellow song actually made the time fly and coordinating the slaps with the melody was…..soothing and quite mellow.

We did 3 sets of S&F’s 20 minutes apart and incorporated the apricots, pistachios and millet seeds on the very first one. We covered the dough between the S&F's with my yellow straw Joaquin Sombrero. By the end of the 3rd set these incorporations were well distributed and seemed happy enough.

After and hour of bulk ferment in our color coordinated, yellow topped, well oiled, plastic box we chucked it into the fridge for a 16 hour retard. After warming up for an hour in the morning we decided to make a Chacon out of this dough since the original chacon shape came from our Italian Altamura shaping experiments and is probably named for a Spaniard of Turkish decent for all we know.

After 2 hours of final proof on the counter in a trash bag, it looked like Old Betsy needed to be fired up to 500 F with stones top and bottom. A large size Sylvia’s Steaming Pan with 2 towels and a 12” CI skillet full of lava rocks - ala David Snyder - both filled half full of water supplied the steam for the first 15 minutes of the bake. It went in over proofed by an inch or so but it was still mellow yellow to the core and not likely to fall if we put some hot spurs to her before she noticed.

Three minutes after the steam bath started, we turned the temperature down to 475 F for the next 12 minutes of steam. At the 15 minute mark we removed the steam, turned the temperature down to 425 F, convection this time. After being spun on the stone 120 degrees every 6 minutes, 3 times, it was done,.

t smelled fantastic and looked splendid for such a mellow heritage…… Chaconing does that to bread nearly every time. We turned the oven off at 203 F and left it on the stone with oven off to finish and hit 205 F at the 33 minute mark. We then left the oven door ajar with the bread still on the stone to crisp the skin even more before removing it to a cooling rack after 8 minutes.

A nice salad already made for dinner.

It cracked and browned boldly as a chacon should but spread more than it sprang the usual thing for a wet, over proffed bread. The basket we used was indented up on the bottom rather than a round bottomed round one, so the bread really has to spring just to get back to flat on top.

The crumb came out moist, open and soft. It has the sweetness that semolina brings to bread too. I have to admit that semolina isn't my favorite flour by far but this bread isn't bad at all. It made a great tasting sandwich for a late lunch and should sub nicely as a hamburger bun for dinner. The crust stayed crunchy for a change as it cooled and it tasted as good as it looked.

Comments

Are you sure you don't live on a Yellow Submarine? W.O.W.......you and Lucy have outdone yourself this time! What a terrific looking bread. I wish I could taste this one as it looks just perfect. I love the yellow mellow ingredients which must have made for just a well balanced soft tasty bread.

you would like the Mellow Yellow bread. it has much of your ingredient list included in it. It basically tastes like a semolina bread just a little more moist and soft due to the cheese, butter, NFDMP and Tang Zhong. Yellow Submarine would have been another great name especially if Lucy was making the bread for sub sandwiches. We still haven't made any Binh Mi - the list is still getting longer:-) The first tomato before May promises a decent tomato season this year.

I'm so jealous that you have some tomatoes already! Mine are growing away in our small pop-up greenhouse waiting for the danger of frost to pass later this month. I have my latest bread to post later today as soon as I can finish the chart sometime today. This is my busy season at work so it's hard to spare the time but one must find it some how :).

Just posted it now....I think you will like it. It's not as complex as your latest but right up your alley.

I kept Lucy from putting in the kitchen sponge. When she is on a mission there is no stopping her sometimes. I was a little shocked when it came out tasting like a semolina bread with a little more depth of flavor. She did succeed in showing me how many bread ingredients we really have around here since this was only the yellow stuff. In think it also shows how hard it really is to make a bad tasting bread. You got yo love the one you're with and this bread is pretty tasty and soft yet strong enough to make a good hamburger bun. Bake and learn!

Beautiful loaf again! With all the good things one could want (good thing there was no kitchen sink). And wow, tomatoes already! We're still nuturing blossoms here in CA. Great looking salad too. Can't wait for the first tomatoes, when it will be time for a Greek Salad with tomatoes, cucumbers, kalamata olives and some feta cheese.

a blazing hot sun and it has been so hot the past 3 weeks the tomatoes stopped setting fruit - so what we have is all we are going to get. We had a late 4 day freeze here so the plants got in the ground a couple of weeks later than usual but it has been warmer this spring so we still got a ripe tomato in April. Greek salad does sound perfect for the hot weather coming too even thought he salad greens are pretty well burned up. This theme bread was a fun bake - even without the sink and i think Lucy will be back to less complicated. non theme, no fruit and nut breads for a while but i'm watching the kitchen sponge closely:-)

Happy baking Linda and good luck with the tomatoes - there's nothing like a fresh salad from the garden.

like an enriched semolina bread, the apricots do not make it too sweet, with a more earthy and deep flavor due to the whole grains, corn and garbanzos. The quinoa makes it more nutty. It has that millet seed crunch and the surprise every so often pistachio makes it a little exotic and has you chomping away looking for the next one. Te one thing I don't like about semolina bread is that it can be on the dry side of this desert. Not this one. Lucy took care of that with the enrichment, Ricotta and Tang Zhongt. It made a fine toast this morning with caramelized Minneola Marmalade. Can't get it anywhere else :-)

Sometimes Lucy even surprises me with her near insane recipe ideas and she needs a Boswell to keep it all straight for posterity and the protection of the human race entirely.

You would like this bread since we remembered to sift out the atta and it would remind you of a Semolina Challah.... if there was such a thing this would be it.

no holds barred kind of bread that Lucy is famous for but this time she really let it all out of the barn. This Lucy creation reminds me of the first house I designed and built while still in Architectural school. My thesis as a Super Senior, jeeze- almost 40 years ago, was to design a low environmental impact, energy efficient, sustainable city using local building materials as much as possible.

Being a dirt poor student I was working a couple of jobs and one was at the University Vehicle Maintenance Department (UVMD) where we took care of all the university vehicles. I got to change the oil, do tune ups, change the oil, change tires, fix flats, fuel and wash them. The head of the department was a great mechanic; Bob Smith, an unusual name if there ever was one - at least at that time so long ago :-)

I was showing Bob the written part of my thesis when he said that he had 10 acres of land outside of town that he wanted to build a house on and waned to know if I could design him one. Sounded good to me so I want out to look at the land and then did some quick design sketches over the next week to show to Bob.

When he saw them he was sort of taken back a little. Bob had a $35,000 max budget but that wasn't going to cover a passive solar, heavily insulated, 3,750 SF house that was built into a a south facing slope on 3 sides with clear story windows on the N, E and W, a south side that was all stone and very tall floor to ceiling glass for the passive solar, had radiant heat in the floor, open beam 50 foot clear spans in 4 directions, a saw tooth cedar shake roof with a creek that ran through the house and did a water fall 10' into a pool out by the front door. But, there were lots of other unusual ingredients too numerous to mention.

Bob said he didn't know much about building costs but he knew he couldn't afford anything like this design. i told him that was true but, for his family to have a great house, we would have to build the whole thing ourselves with many found materials on the site, building everything from scratch - what ever it was except for the green reflective thermal pane windows, appliances and small boiler. Bob, being in charge of UVMD, would have to borrow a front end loader, backhoe, scaffolding and other needed construction equipment from the university building and construction department on the weekends when they didn't need them and we were 'maintaining' them. Sadly, they didn't have a crane so, we had to build our own, to lift up the site made near 3' deep very heavy 52' beams made on site for the clear spans. All he had to do is say yes - even though he had little to no construction experience. All he had was me and I didnlt have much of any constrution experience

This is where I learned to never ever have any fear because it will stop you from solving problems, doing great things and realizing that very, very few things in life are impossible. Bob had no fear, pride or ego - and no sense either, according to his wife, who thankfully was a great cook and made us meals as we worked over the last year of my Architectural training to build this house. I not only got some of the books smarts of buildings but the actual site training too by doing all the construction trades from beginning to end. Even learned how to quarry stone, as well as, lay it horizontal and vertical. The house turned out better than we thought it would, came in under budget and we ended up adding to the design as we went along rather than taking things away.

So if you ever design a building, remember to put in everything you ever thought you wanted and the stuff you never thought you wanted. Only take away the stuff you can't afford based on its low priority. That way you get the best of the maximum you can afford. Less is just less in buildings but I'm not sure if this is true about bread :-) I never got to build my Utopian City but I did get to build one of the houses that would have benn in it :-)

One of the first things most Architectural graduates learn after graduation is that; after 5 years of training, they still don't know anything about buildings. I wasn't one of them. It was the best year of my life and those experiences changed my life forever. But, I still don't know how Lucy comes up with these crazy breads!

Wow DA...now I see where you get your out of the box ideas from. That house sounds amazing especially for the time period you built it. Do you have any photos from the finished house you could share? I would love to see how your dream came to fruition.

about 30 years before digital cameras. I have some 8x10 photos i took with my Mamiya 645, back then state of the art, that are in the storage boxes from 25 years ago somewhere in the garage if I'm remembering right. I will look to see if i can find them, take pictures of the photos and send them along.

The only other house I did was for a friend and co-worker when I lived in Denver. It too was 3,700 SF but cost $135,000 nearly 20 years later. It was on 2 acres in Coal Creek Canyon and built on a south facing slope and passive solar, where the mountainous terrain and trees posed a really dangerous fire hazard. So, we built it totally fire proof with steel studs, stucco and metal roof and then we put in a cistern that was filled by rain water fro the roof and driveways and hooked it up to an outdoor sprinkler system that would protect the house for at least 10 minutes with a pump and backup generator. All John had to do when the fire came was go into the concrete fire room with his family and flip the switch when the fire came to the house. The entire house would then be enveloped in a spray of water - a huge safety dome. That housealso had under driveway heating so he didnlt have to shovel the snow which can be considerable but the huge cistern needed the water run off to stay full .

John always said he didn't know if liked this because his house would stand through any fire but everything else around his house, for as far as the eye could see, would be burned down and he would have to live in a burned out forest with no neighbors, Contrary to popular belief around Coal Creek Canyon, you can't have everything :-)

Now I can't wait to see the photos of the houses you built! What an interesting account. And a very good lesson in not being afraid of going after what you want. Did you build your own home from scratch, too?

building my own house and have lived it the same one for 26 years, the one we moved into right after we got married. But if I did - I wouldn't. I would have 'The Stock' do the design work. He is the best home designer I know well enough to get it done for free :-) My wife wouldn't let me do it anyway as she would know it might be a little unusual for her tastes and too much aligned with mine - smart girl isn't she? I've done several designs for a house though, like the Santa Fe style ones I like the best, but It will not ever happen. We have all changed too much for them to adapt to us well enough now and they are way too big by far for empty nesters.

Right now, I'm working on packing everything I want into a 500 sf house - several versions of it actually. It is very much like one of my apprentices bread designs which is the inspiration for it. See..... Lucy is good for more than baking bread and stepping on in the kitchen! Just doing floor plans and sections now so I still can make them be Santa Fe on the outside!

A small foot print is the environmental way to go in the future; easily sustainable, does not use huge amounts of natural resources to construct, connect, maintain or power. It would be very affordable for the younger crowd who can't find decent paying work after graduating from college, aren't married and way better than paying rent or living at home with 'The Parents' - especially if I was one of their parents :-)

It makes a lot of sense for folks like me too who now,but not always, think the best things in life you can't buy - no matter how rich you are and the things you can buy - aren't worth owning. I would rather spend and invest in things that aren't 'more stuff.' I suppose it is just a different outlook on what is personally important in life and then living it. This certainly is not for the vast majority for sure who I know think much differently - and good for them. Their thoughts are certainly right for them and OK by me - no worries. In fact, I could care less what anyone else does with their life and feel it is none of my business whatsoever ..... and hope they feel the same.

Still, I might build one or two of these small houses eventually. One for myself and one for my wife, so when we get older we won't have to go to nursing homes but can live on our daughter's vast estate, that she will accumulate, so she can take care of us in our old age :-)

There is certainly enough capital, freedom, tolerance, acceptance, humor, love and space for all of us to live somewhere near each other .....but still far enough away, especially when things are smaller.

I'm not looking forward to tearing the garage apart looking for old stuff :-).

We like it too. See my post to Varda for the taste. We don't use this basket much because it isn't round on the bottom to give the bread an upward domed shape as it proofs. This one is just the opposite causing a concave top to the bread - so it isn't perfect but it does put a nice pattern on the bread surface.

It is just fun to be able to bake these odd concoctions Lucy comes up with somehow.

... stories, full of suspense as one never knows what's coming next! And really funny: "Being a nut herself, she eventually realized that there weren’t any in this bread." And Lucie pushing the yellow sponge. Haha! Great bake!

keep your eye on Lucy.... even after saying no to her. I checked to make sure the yellow sponge was still intact before putting the bread in the oven. She may be the master's best friend but friendship only goes so far with determined apprentices like her. Glad you liked the post - the bread isn't too bad either.

Now, you have that song stuck in uncountable heads... great bread, great posting... great recipe... I knew you and Lucy would get those seeds and nuts in there... looks really awesome. You are DA Bomb!

on the GMA's corn bread really fired up the creative juices bubbling inside Lucy. She was bound and even more determined than usual to live up to your inspiration and predictions! I'm glad she didn't disappoint as she so often does when it comes to song selections- that will drive you crazy :-) She already said she is starting design work on Dabomb but, if she starts making explosive devices in the back bathroom bathtub,..... that will be the red line where, if crossed, there will be no singing of any song ever again - not even the risque verses of 12 bar blues she is so fond of!

Glad you liked the song selection and the bread that was inspired by it and you gals corn bread bakes. It was good to be baking with you GMA's again this week.

You embarrass me with your accolades - but you are right and my wife agrees. My wonderful wife says I am just..... full of it:-) There can be no love without humor. I've always wondered who said that originally but it is so true.

Happy baking Evon. You will be shocked to see I baked a white bread today!

My God, DBM, I'm sitting here on the sofa in our rented Airbnb apartment in Hamburg, reading this post, and am almost overcome. What an amazing outcome of your yellow frenzy (don't blame your poor apprentice, she's just your willing accomplice!) I would not have thought that a beautiful (and edible) loaf would come out of these feverish activities (though I think you could have thrown in some nasturtium or marigold leaves, for good measure.)

But you should probably read to your apprentice Karol Capek's delightful story about Dog and Cat who one day decided to bake the most wonderful cake, putting everything in the batter they liked, bones, cookies, cheese, a mouse, cream, herring, peanutbutter, you name it. They baked the cake and placed it out on the porch to cool down, so that they could have it. But, alas, a nasty neighbor dog came by, attracted by the smell, and wolfed the whole thing down. Cat and Dog were devastated.....until they heard neighbor's dog's pityful howling from his tremendous belly ache ....

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